French Police Surrounding House of Alleged School Shooter

Posted March 21st, 2012 at 3:10 am (UTC-5)
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French police are surrounding a house in Toulouse where the suspect in Monday's deadly Jewish school shooting is holed up.

French Interior Minister Claude Gueant says the suspect claims he belongs to al-Qaida, and that he wanted to avenge Palestinian children killed in the Middle East.

Police arrested the suspect's brother after raiding the house early Wednesday.

The shooter is accused of murdering a rabbi and three children – ages four, five, and seven – at the Jewish school in Toulouse before driving off on a motorcycle.

The cold-blooded attack has stunned and outraged France and been condemned by world leaders.

President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister Francois Fillon attended a brief memorial service at a Paris airport before the bodies of the victims were flown to Israel for burial Wednesday.

French police say the shooter used the same gun to kill three French soldiers of African and French Caribbean origin last week in Toulouse and a nearby town.

Mr. Sarkozy said the anti-Semitic nature of the murders is obvious. He, along with Socialist Francois Hollande and right-winger Marie Le Pen, have have temporarily suspended their presidential election campaigns out of respect for the victims.

Meanwhile, a package bomb exploded Wednesday outside the Indonesian embassy in Paris, breaking windows but causing no injuries. No one has claimed responsibility.

” You know… with the prime minister, the justice minister, it's a moment of reverence in front of these four coffins and a moment of exchange with the families, you can imagine their upheaval. I must say we were impressed by the courage of this mother who is left with her little daughter and who saw in front of her eyes – she told us – her husband and her two children in a pool of blood. What can you say… this grand-father who lost in a moment his son and his two grandsons. The headmaster of the school who saw his daughter being executed with a bullet shot in her head. Nobody can accept this. Thank you.” ))